If you read a lot of websites, you have probably already seen a million photos of the gates. Prepare yourself for the best photos of the gates on this website! (I love tautological statements.) Unless you have been living in a cave for the past couple of months, you have probably already heard of The Gates. The Gates are an installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a husband and wife team. You can read about the project at their website; there are also some fantastic photos by Wolfgang Volz.

Betsy and I visited the Gates today. Today is the last full day of the installation, and I would have felt like an idiot if I did not see it given that I work less than ten blocks away. (Betsy lives even closer) Regardless of how you feel about the project, it is certainly a spectacle. I’m not sure if it the entire project was worth the publicly stated cost of over $20 million. You can fund a lot of independent artists in New York City for that amount of money. However, there are much worse ways to spend $20 million. And it is nice to see such a large-scale, albeit ephemeral, environmental artwork. As I wrote months ago, cities can always use more public art.

At left is a photo of a sample of the material used to make The Gates. It was being handed out by volunteers. A bunch of still photos are below; I also make two movies. I feel the movies give a much better idea of The Gates than some of the still photos. Please forgive my inane commentary on the first movie; not only is bustling a word, but also I even used it correctly. Movie 1 is 3.4 megabytes, and Movie 2 is 4.2 megabytes.